Press Kit

Bio

57 Words

Karen A. Parker is a Black, queer, nonbinary, and neurodivergent Secular Buddhist from Los Angeles, California. They graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from UC Riverside’s Palm Desert program in June 2024. When they’re not reading or writing, they enjoy cooking, cartomancy, composing music, critting in Dungeons & Dragons, and completing their video game collection.

154 Words

Karen A. Parker is a Black, queer, nonbinary, and neurodivergent Secular Buddhist from Los Angeles, California. They graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from UC Riverside’s Palm Desert program in June 2024. Their remastered short story collection, The Art of Capturing Phantoms: Definitive Edition, has received critical acclaim from Readers' Favorite, Indies Today, and Independent Book Review. Other short fiction and nonfiction of theirs has been published in The Drabble, Visual Verse, 101 Words, and The Coachella Review. As the former editor of Voice to Books for The Coachella Review, an Associate member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, a member of the Codex Writers Group, and an Impact Fellowship Recipient of Author Accelerator, they continuously strive to uplift fellow BIPOC and QUILTBAG+ writers of speculative and commercial fiction. When they’re not writing, they enjoy cooking, cartomancy, composing music, critting in Dungeons & Dragons, and completing their video game collection.

217 Words

Karen A. Parker is a Black, queer, nonbinary, and neurodivergent Secular Buddhist from Los Angeles, California. After graduating cum laude from UC Irvine with a BA in English, a Creative Writing Emphasis in Fiction, and a minor in Japanese Language and Literature, they taught English in Gifu, Japan, for three years as an Assistant Language Teacher. Having graduating from UC Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA Program with a Creative Writing degree in Fiction, they extensively researched African oral storytelling tradition and Black liberation for their POC-coded, queer-normative, epic fantasy novel, the early pages of which serve as their thesis manuscript.

Their remastered short story collection, The Art of Capturing Phantoms: Definitive Edition, has received critical acclaim from Readers' Favorite, Indies Today, and Independent Book Review. Other short fiction and nonfiction of theirs has been published in The Drabble, Visual Verse, 101 Words, and The Coachella Review. As the former editor of Voice to Books for The Coachella Review, an Associate member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, a member of the Codex Writers Group, and an Impact Fellowship Recipient of Author Accelerator, they continuously strive to uplift fellow BIPOC and QUILTBAG+ writers of speculative fiction. When they’re not writing, they enjoy cooking, cartomancy, composing music, critting in Dungeons & Dragons, and completing their video game collection.